Boston Red Sox Quietly Go to a Six-Man Rotation

In doing prep work for my weekly Friday radio show appearance on The Shore Sports Report, I came across the Boston Red Sox upcoming pitching matchups. Clay Buchholz went last night at Baltimore, Jon Lester (3-0, 0.84 vs. O's this year—a gambler's lock if their ever was one) goes Saturday, and Dice-K on Sunday. The longer schedule has Tim Wakefield making an appearance on Monday and Paul Byrd going Tuesday at Kansas City. That leaves Thursday night's pitcher, Josh Beckett, as the sixth man! Good planning by Boston picking up Byrd late to give them innings, and working in and keeping Buchholz in the rotation while he was struggling in his early starts. The long-time top prospect is now 5-0 in his last seven starts, including two wins each over AL East rivals Tampa Bay and Toronto, and last night's over Baltimore. Most of the the Red Sox starting pitchers were going through various issues the middle of the season: veterans Brad Penny and John Smoltz...